AsJared KushnerandIvanka Trumpwere preparing to embark on one of their most delicate political campaigns, his brother and sister-in-law,Joshua KushnerandKarlie Kloss, were preparing aweekend-long party in Wyomingto celebrate their wedding last fall.
The two worlds briefly collided when Jared and his wife visited Josh and Kloss in Wyoming, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.
It was there that Josh and Kloss, whomarried in October, just threwa three-day celebration of their nuptialsalongside guests includingOrlando BloomandKaty Perry.
On Sunday Ivanka, 37, posted a photo to her Instagram Story of her and Jared outdoors, in a setting similar to social media posts from other attendees at the Wyoming party.
But the photo was taken elsewhere, says the source in attendance.
(A White House spokeswoman for Ivanka declined to comment on her personal schedule and did not respond to a message about the couple traveling early to visit Kloss and then leaving before the weekend.)
Ivanka Trump/Instagram
Both senior aides toDonald Trump, Jared and Ivanka have begun promoting the administration’s new plan to foster peace between Palestinians and Israel. Jared will speak about the proposal in Bahrain during a two-day “Peace to Prosperity” gathering that starts Tuesday.
Still, only the economic parts of the American peace plan have been announced,according toThe New York Times. The plan’s funding is also more aspirational than concrete, with the U.S. not pledging any money and instead seeking private sources, grants and the support of Persian Gulf countries.
Jaredtold Reutersthat the Bahrain trip was less a “conference” than a “workshop”: “We want to get feedback and hopefully finalize it so we can then coordinate a lot of the aid efforts and investing efforts to really drive results.”
“I laugh when they attack this as the ‘Deal of the Century.’ This is going to be the ‘Opportunity of the Century’ if they have the courage to pursue it,” he said of the proposal.
Jared has been a key architect of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace proposal, which he has beenworking on for several years, according toThe Economist. He took his first solo trip to the Middle East in 2017 to discuss peace with Israeli and Palestinian leaders separately,the Associated Press reported.
The $50-billion economic plan the administration has proposed, more than half of which would reportedly go to Palestinians, would mostly aid Palestinian territories over a 10-year period, Jared said.
From left: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty
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The plan also calls for connecting the West Bank to the Gaza Strip via a transportation corridor and investing in the area’s tourism sector.
But, according to theTimes, it elides more persistent and more complicated issues dividing the Israelis and Palestinians, such as continued violence and conflicting political goals.
Jared told Reuters he hopes that the plan will bring more investment to the region, then “more jobs and better quality of life and hopefully more peace along with it.”
Still, the talks have stirred backlash from some Palestinians, who have burned effigies of President Trump and rallied in protest leading up to the talks,Reuters reported.
“First lift the siege of Gaza, stop the Israeli theft of our land, resources and funds, give us our freedom of movement and control over our borders, airspace, territorial waters etc.,” one senior Palestinian negotiator tweeted, according to theTimes. “Then watch us build a vibrant prosperous economy as a free and sovereign people.”
Jared himself has also faced criticism — as has Ivanka — about his lack of diplomatic or political expertise. (In recent months the White House has been boasting of Ivanka’s work on economic and jobs policy, though often in broad terms.)
“I have to say that this [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] is one of the hardest problems that exists in the world,” Jared told Reuters. “This conflict has been going on for a very, very long time and there’s been a lot of attempts at it which have all been very well-intended and noble attempts to try and solve it.”
source: people.com
